SOLD Unorthodox memoir

 

SOLD

Excellent condition. PB. 258pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Unorthodox is the bestselling memoir of a young Jewish woman’s escape from a religious sect, in the tradition of Carolyn Jessop’s Escape.

As a member of the strictly religious Satmar sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up under a code of relentlessly enforced customs governing everything from what she could wear and to whom she could speak to what she was allowed to read.

Yet in spite of her repressive upbringing, Deborah grew into an independent-minded young woman whose stolen moments reading about the empowered literary characters of Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott helped her to imagine an alternative way of life among the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

Trapped as a teenager in a sexually and emotionally dysfunctional marriage to a man she barely knew, the tension between Deborah’s desires and her responsibilities as a good Satmar girl grew more explosive until she gave birth at nineteen and realized that, regardless of the obstacles, she would have to forge a path—for herself and her son—to happiness and freedom.

Remarkable and fascinating, this “sensitive and memorable coming-of-age story” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) is one you won’t be able to put down.

Parents, children and identity

 

Mint condition. PB. 960pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

**WINNER OF THE WELLCOME BOOK PRIZE 2014**

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Sometimes your child - the most familiar person of all - is radically different from you. The saying goes that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. But what happens when it does?

Drawing on interviews with over three hundred families, covering subjects including deafness, dwarfs, Down's Syndrome, Autism, Schizophrenia, disability, prodigies, children born of rape, children convicted of crime and transgender people, Andrew Solomon documents ordinary people making courageous choices.

Difference is potentially isolating, but Far from the Tree celebrates repeated triumphs of human love and compassion to show that the shared experience of difference is what unites us.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for General Non-fiction and eleven other national awards. Winner of the Green Carnation Prize.

SOLD Traveling through and reporting from Indonesia

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 404pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A compelling, entertaining and fascinating journey through one of the world's largest, most dynamic and most contradictory countries.

In 1945, Indonesia's declaration of independence promised: 'the details of the transfer of power etc. will be worked out as soon as possible.' Still working on the 'etc.' seven decades later, the world's fourth most populous nation is now enthusiastically democratic and riotously diverse.

Over 65 million Indonesians use Facebook, though 80 million live without electricity. It is one of the richest and most enchanting countries on earth, but is riddled, too, with ineptitude and corruption.

Elizabeth Pisani, who first worked in Indonesia 25 years ago as a foreign correspondent and came back a decade later as a medical researcher, set out in 2011 to rediscover its enduring attraction, and to find the links which bind together this impossibly disparate nation.

She travelled over 13,000 miles by land and sea, dropping in on local potentates and staying with farmers and fishermen, and nomads and nurses, often on islands too small to appear on a map.

In Indonesia Etc., Pisani weaves together the stories of Indonesians encountered on her journey with a considered analysis of Indonesia's recent history, corrupt political system, ethnic and religious identities, stifling bureaucracy and traditional 'sticky' cultures.

Fearless and funny, and sharply perceptive, she has drawn a compelling, entertaining and deeply informed portrait of a captivating nation.

About the Author

ELIZABETH PISANI was Indonesia correspondent for Reuters and the Economist from 1988 to 1991. She worked with Indonesia's Ministry of Health from 2001 to 2005 as an epidemiologist, and spent 2011 travelling the archipelago. Pisani is the author of The Wisdom of Whores (Granta, 2008), and speaks several languages, including Indonesian.

Travels in Iran

 

PB. 415pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Filling a long-neglected gap in the travel writing of the region, "Mirrors of the Unseen" is a rare and timely portrait of the nation descended from the world's earliest superpower: Iran.

Animated by the same spirit of exploration as its acclaimed predecessor, "An Unexpected Light, " and drawing on several years of independent travel and research, this thought-provoking work weaves together observations of life in contemporary Iran with history, politics, and a penetrating enquiry into the secrets of Islamic art.

Generously illustrated with the author's own sketches and photographs, "Mirrors of the Unseen" is a rich, sensitive, and vivid account of a country and its culture.

Jason Elliot lives in London. His first book, "An Unexpected Light": "Travels in Afghanistan," was a "New York Times" bestseller. In our current climate of war and suspicion, Iran is depicted as a "rogue" nation, defined by the radical pronouncements of its leaders.

But such rhetoric obscures the real Iran: an ancient culture, both sophisticated and isolated, which acknowledges "an invisible world, from which the soul receives a more rarefied nourishment."

Jason Elliot has spent the past three years traveling in Iran, and in this book he reveals the many sides of this misunderstood country. In "Mirrors of the Unseen," we are introduced to the urban contradictions of the capital, Tehran, and invited to ponder the sublime architecture of Isfahan; we travel with Elliot on horseback through the forests of the north, across the bleak landscapes of Kurdistan, and retrace Byron's steps to such fables monuments are the tower of Qabus, the palace of Firuzabad, and Persepolis.

“Mirrors of the Unseen" is travel writing that includes history, anecdote, and provocative analysis, as well as the author's own photographs.

“Elliot reports on the 'double life' of the Persians he meets, who unanimously denounce the ruling mullahs. One insists that you're nobody in Iran if you haven't been imprisoned; another rolls his eyes at the author's obsessive trawling of mosques, protesting, 'People will think I'm with a fanatic.' The book is replete with historical arcana . . . ruminations on the 'turbulent calligraphies' of Islamic architecture, and labyrinthine footnotes . . . Elliot is a travel writer of the old school: untethered to an itinerary, eager to be led astray, and as ardent an observer of the experience of traveling as of his destination."--"The New Yorker"

“Around his account of many months of travel, and sustained by extensive reading in libraries, Elliot] aims to build nothing less than a cohesive idea of Iran's artistic development . . . Elliot's roving gaze holds an advantage for the reader. By consulting this single volume, one can learn about Cyrus the Great's Achaemenid Empire--and Herodotus's Hellenic-centered account of it--and about the consequences of the Arab conquest of the seventh century, which turned Iran . . . from a Zoroastrian into a Mulsim nation. He] describes the later Mongol devastations and gives much attention to the Safavid Empire that flowered after 1600, when Shiism, Islam's main minority sect, came to occupy the position of political and cultural dominance in Persia."--Christopher de Bellaigue, "The New York Times Book Review"

“Though fascinated by the past, the author has a knack for meeting characters, often eccentric, who tell just the right stories: an American expatriate quietly breeding miniature horses thought extinct; a brilliant conversationalist recalling the day an Iraqi missile crashed through the roof of her Tehran kitchen; assorted taxi drivers, hoteliers and intellectuals revealing essential aspects of the national character. What the reader learns of Iran is mostly positive, but by no means sugar-coated; some of the adventures presented here are for the stout-hearted only. A tempering treatise, one hopes, for those rushing to make war on Iran--and an education for those trying to stop them."--"Kirkus Reviews"

“Briton Elliot is the author of the beautifully written "An Unexpected Light": "Travels in Afghanistan," in which his trips to that war-torn country were relived with graphic detail and trenchant understanding. His new book, equally stylish and meaty and compassionate, documents his journeys around another uneasy country. Elliot went to Iran for the purpose of writing another travel book, his desire to witness contemporary Iranian society in light of the shadow but also inspiration cast over it by the wealth of ancient Persian culture. No year in Provence, this author's traveling experiences will make armchair travelers gulp at the lack of creature comforts; on the other hand, splendid visual evidence of political and religious pasts will perhaps stir that very armchair traveler into ticket-holding action. Elliot visited the major cities as well as the smaller ones; his journeys took him over hill and dale. He knows Iranian history and culture, obviously, and equally obvious is his good sense, in composing travel literature, to smoothly integrate factual background into swiftly moving narrative foreground."--Brad Hooper,

Travels from Mexico to Poland

 

Excellent condition. PB. 442pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Autobiographical account of a writer's journeys to Mexico, New York and Poland.

Relates her experiences in Mexico as she tries to write a novel, the devastation of losing her New York home, and researching a novel in Poland.

Author was born in Germany and emigrated to Melbourne in 1948.

Her first book, 'The Auschwitz Poems', won the 1987 Victorian Premier's Award for Poetry, and 'Just Like That' received the 1995 NSW Premier Awards for Fiction.

She currently lives in New York with her husband, Australian painter David Rankin.

Hilarious history

 

Mint condition. PB. 153pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A revised and expanded edition of the bestselling parody that includes thirty-pages of new text, photos, and contemporary subjects—a clever and fresh historical chronicle.

The Sun is now friends with Earth and 7 other planets

Pluto: Not cool.

What if Facebook had emerged with the Big Bang, and every historical event took place online? Imagine how we’d we see history if . . .

On April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln updated his status: "Taking the missus to the theater"

God and Stephen Hawking trolled each other in a comment war over the creation of the universe?

Alexander the Great "checked into" all the countries he conquered

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin "Liked" each other's cryptic statuses

Irreverent and clever, The History of the World According to Facebook goes back through time, from the beginning of the world to the present, to cover all the major events and eras of human history, such as the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Age. Wylie Overstreet brings the book up to date with three-dozen pages of additional material on contemporary figures and topics, from Caitlin Jenner to Deflategate to MAGA and Trump.

Filled with hundreds of actual figures from across the centuries and thousands of invented statuses, comments, and actions lampooning Facebook users’ penchant for oversharing, abbreviation, self-importance, and lazy jargon, The History of the World According to Facebook defies all attempts at taking the multi-billion user social media platform SRSLY. It is the funniest parody of history and the dawn of man since, well, the dawn of man.

About the Author

Wylie Overstreet, 26, has worked for Architectural Digest and GOOD Magazine, and has written satire for the website CoolMaterial.com.

He lives in Los Angeles.

Lonely Planet travel anthology

 

Ex-library. Excellent condition. HB. 271pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

A collection of great travel writing by authors from around the globe, including original stories set in Scotland, Thailand, Malaysia, Moldova, Tanzania, Austria and beyond, edited by long-term Lonely Planet collaborator Don George.

The 35 impassioned stories included in this collection - of fortune tellers, tribal baboon hunters, a friendly Japanese family, and other notable characters - span a worldwide spectrum of themes, styles and settings, but all show how travel in its unexpected turns tests and teaches us, making us aware that we are resilient, that we are not alone, and that there is so much love and connection to be had if we open ourselves up.

This collection affirms that if we follow the compass of the heart, we will always find our way. Whether you read the book on the road or in an armchair at home, these tales are sure to entertain, amuse and inform you, and resonate long after the book is finished.

'As you travel through these pages, may your mind be widened, your spirit enlivened, and your own path illuminated by these worldly word-journeys.' ---Don George

With sparkling contributions from some of the most acclaimed names in contemporary fiction and travel writing plus some new voices from around the world, including:

Ann Patchett, Francine Prose, TC Boyle, Karen Joy Fowler, Pico Iyer, Torre DeRoche, Blane Bachelor, Rebecca Dinerstein, Jan Morris, Elizabeth George, Jane Hamilton, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, Mridu Khullar Relph, Yulia Denisyuk, Emily Koch, Carissa Kasper, Jessica Silber, Candace Rose Rardon, Marilyn Abildskov, Shannon Leone Fowler, Robin Cherry, Robert Twigger, Porochista Khakpour, Natalie Baszile, Suzy Joinson, Anthony Sattin, LH McMillin, Bridget Crocker, Maggie Downs, Bishwanath Ghosh, Jeff Greenwald, James Dorsey and Tahir Shah.

About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, gift and lifestyle books and stationery, as well as an award-winning website, magazines, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in.

Australian politics past and present through a Labor lens

 

Ex-library. Mint condition. PB. 212pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The book asks how a nation with the developed world's best economy has a dimmer view of its performance than some of the basket case economies of southern Europe have of their own, and how a country that escaped recession and mass unemployment despite the biggest global downturn since the Great Depression got so down on itself.

It is a Labor insiders' account of politics and policy in Australia during the global financial crisis, which finds in a lethal combination of right-wing hyper-partisanship and misaligned incentives in our politics the root causes of Australia's lack of confidence and its deficit of national self-esteem.

It provides a unique perspective on economics and national identity, concluding that if we don't choose a future less consumed by the poisonous politics of recent years we will squander our tremendous national advantages and momentum, and compromise our ability to tackle the socio-economic challenges of the coming decades as successfully as we have navigated those just past.

SOLD History of modern conflict in Afghanistan

 

SOLD

Mint condition. PB. 

Biography of Adele

 

Ex-library. Excellent condition. PB. 223pp. $15 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The compelling life story of the Grammy-winning soul singer Adele's soulful voice, catchy hits, and vulnerable personality have won her critical acclaim and huge popularity.

She has topped the charts in 18 countries—but who is she? What is the truth of the tempestuous life that has so influenced her heartbreaking tracks? How did she overcome the challenges that threatened to derail her career?

This compelling book traces her story from her childhood in London, where she began singing at the age of four. During her teenage years she wrote her own music and attended the BRIT school, alongside the likes of Leona Lewis.

After posting demos on the MySpace website she earned a record deal and quickly captured hearts.

Adele remains an unlikely icon. Her looks are unusual in a formulaic world of celebrity image, she suffers badly with pre-stage nerves, and she once canceled a crucial promotional trip to the U.S. because she felt too down to travel.

This is a full, unflinching portrait of a genuine talent and inspiring, uncompromising woman—the curvy girl-next-door who conquered the world.

A tale of abuse of British children in Australia

 

Rare book. Ex-library. Mint condition. PB. 194pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

“From the 1860’s to the late 1960’s over 150,000 boys and girls “volunteered” to migrate from the United Kingdom to many colonies of the then British Empire, including Australia. The abolition of the slave trade in 1803 and the eventual emancipation of individual slaves in the 1830’s had left the colonies with a shortage of labour to be partially filled by these children.

“This diaspora of children rivalled the number of convicts sent to Australia. We were the unwanted generations; many of us were bastards/illegitimate by birth and/or from the lowest echelons of society. It was all quite “normal” and accepted practice; we were surplus to requirements. Once we were put into institutions we became “fillii nullius” the children of no one, to be done with as the authorities saw fit. Each of us has a story to tell; this is my story.”

Stories of forgotten Indian soldiers from WWII

 

Excellent condition. PB. 320pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Three young men gazed at him from silver-framed photographs in his grandmother’s house, ‘beheld but not noticed, as angels are in a frieze full of mortal strugglers’. 

They had all been in the Second World War, a fact that surprised him. Indians had never figured in his idea of the war, nor the war in his idea of India – and he thought that he had a good idea of both.

One of them, Bobby, even looked a bit like him, but Raghu Karnad had not noticed until he was the same age as they were in their photo-frames.

Then he learned about the Parsi boy from the sleepy south Indian coast, so eager to follow his brothers-in-law into the colonial forces and onto the front line. 

Manek, dashing and confident, was a pilot with India’s fledgling air force; gentle Ganny became an army doctor in the arid North-West Frontier. Bobby’s pursuit would carry him as far as the deserts of Iraq and the green hell of the Burma battlefront. 

The years 1939-45 might be the most revered, deplored and replayed in modern history. Yet India’s extraordinary role has been concealed, from itself and from the world. 

In riveting prose, Karnad retrieves the story of a single family – a story of love, rebellion, loyalty and uncertainty – and with it, the greatest revelation that is India’s Second World War. 

Farthest Field narrates the lost epic of India’s war, in which the largest volunteer army in history fought for the British Empire, even as its countrymen fought to be free of it. 

It carries us from Madras to Peshawar, Egypt to Burma – unfolding the saga of a young family amazed by their swiftly changing world and swept up in its violence.

SOLD Travel the world with one of Australia's finest travel writers

 

SOLD

Rare book. Very good condition. PB. 320pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Journey with Australia's favourite off-the-beaten-track travel writer to Hemingway's Havana haunts; chase the ghosts of Gauguin in French Polynesia; take a step back in showbiz history and legend at London's Savoy; join the Brotherhood of the Bear during the Arctic Circle summer; unfurl the sails of a classic clipper n the Andaman Sea; dance to the elated beat of freedom in East Timor with Xanana Gusmao; and rollick along Britain's rock/pop trail.

Memoir of an AFL legend

 

Mint condition. PB. 320pp. $20 including postage anywhere in Australia.

In my experience, a lot of young Muslims feel they have to stray from Islam to earn people’s respect. My belief, and my message, is the opposite: that doing the right thing and being proud of your identity and beliefs will bring you real success – and even more than that, respect for yourself and your faith.’ FAITH, FOOTBALL and FAMILY is the long-awaited autobiography from one of the AFL's most fascinating men.

Bachar Houli is as accomplished an AFL footballer as they come. He’s been part of three Richmond Premiership sides, he was an All-Australian in 2019, and with over 200 games to his name he remains a key part of a champion team.

Picked at number 42 in the 2006 National Draft by Essendon, Houli played 26 games for the Bombers before moving in late 2010 via the pre-season draft to Tigerland, where rookie coach Damien Hardwick was assembling the team that six years later would achieve the seemingly impossible and claim Richmond’s 11th Premiership. Another flag followed two years later, with Houli close to best on ground in both deciders.

Yet it’s as the AFL’s most prominent Muslim player that Houli is best known – and his strong Muslim values are at the heart of the man he is. Writing for the first time, Houli explores the experiences and beliefs that sparked his trailblazing success as a Muslim footballer, and that established him as a leading voice within the AFL community for inclusion, understanding and tolerance.

Travels and commentary on the Sunshine State

 

Rare book. Very good condition. PB. 300pp. $30 including postage anywhere in Australia.

Funny, personal and completely unexpected, Mango Country explores the notion that the further you venture from a nation's capital, the likelier you are to encounter its culture in the raw.

Journeying around North Queensland, jungle tour guide turned gonzo-journalist John van Tiggelen lingers in places that tourists are ill-advised, disinclined or simply unable to visit. He goes crocodile hunting, shoots a nude calendar for charity, joins the world's wildest cricket carnival, attends the opening of the Big Mango and flits around the Torres Strait on a wing and a prayer.

En route he is harassed by cassowaries, bush poets, thong collectors, falling coconuts, Bob Katter, and the alien commander of 18 million spaceships, among others. But he also harasses them.

Mango Country goes beyond the travel brochures to offer an irreverent profile of a province, and an insight into Australian life away from the big city lights.

Political biography of Jacinda Ardern

 

Mint condition. PB. 320pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

She is a progressive and a social democrat. A millennial woman in leadership. Only the second elected leader in the world to give birth while in office. But who is the real Jacinda Ardern? And why does she inspire such global admiration?

New Zealand's prime minister has been hailed as a leader for a new generation, tired of inaction in the face of issues such as climate change and far-right terrorism.

Her grace and compassion following the Christchurch mosque shooting captured the world's attention. Oprah Winfrey invited us to 'channel our inner Jacindas' as praise for Ardern flooded headlines and social media. The ruler of this remote country even made the cover of Time.

In this revealing biography, journalist Madeleine Chapman discovers the woman behind the headlines. Always politically engaged and passionate, Ardern is uncompromising and astute. She has encountered her fair share of sexism, but rather than let that harden her, she advocates 'rising above' disparagers. In her first press conference, she announced an election campaign of 'relentless positivity'. The tactic was a resounding success- donations poured in and Labour rebounded in the polls.

But has Ardern lived up to her promise? What political concessions has she had to make? And beyond the hype, what does her new style of leadership look like in practice?

An important message from the Premier of Western Australia

 

My fellow West Australians.

As you all know, people over east look down on us. They accuse us of being uneducated, of being a bunch of bogans and of having the worst newspaper in Australia.

The time has come to prove them wrong. Let's show them we know how to read, that we also love books.

I'm therefore pleased to tell you all that Planet Irf Books are extending their sale beyond the end of the last financial year. Indeed, the sale will continue until the end of the Sydney lockdown. The way they manage Covid over there, I estimate that will likely be the year 2,956.

That allows us Westies to grab books at $5 off the marked price. And because the books are second hand, there's no GST. Which makes sense because we never seem to get enough GST anyway.

Plus those Easties at Planet Irf Books will be paying all the postage. That means some Aussie Post truckie will be driving across the Nullarbor to deliver our books at no extra cost.

But most of all, you'll be helping Irf, an otherwise proud Eastie, to raise some much needed dosh so he can move over here, jump into the 50 metre Aqua Jetty pool and do some laps and shed some kilos in my Covid-free electorate. 

So let's take advantage this opportunity to prove our literacy and simultaneously rip off the Easties by buying heaps of books cheaper than the chips at said Aqua Jetty.

Simultaneously. Now that's a big word.

Mark

SOLD Taking the piss of travel writers in this sort-of-memoir

 

SOLD

Rare book. One of Paul Theroux's finest and funniest books. PB. 456pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia. Theroux literally takes the piss of himself and the whole profession of travel writing.

In the Washington Post Book World, Sven Birkerts called this exuberant novel "a complex and gripping work of invention and confession . . . I understood again how the prose of a true writer can bring us to a world beyond." 

The book spans almost thirty years in the life of a fictional "Paul Theroux," who moves through young bachelorhood in Africa, in and out of marriage, affairs, and employment, and between continents. It's a wry, worldly, erotic, and deeply moving account of one man's first half century - "among the strongest things Theroux has ever written" (New York Times Book Review).

Jon Lee Anderson reports from Afghanistan

 

Rare book. PB. Excellent condition. 224pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia.

The New Yorker correspondent and author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life shares a series of reports from Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, describing a dangerous world of violence, feudal society, conspiracy, religious fanaticism, hardship, and war.

Lonely Planet's travel anthology

 

Rare book. Excellent condition. PB. 271pp. $25 including postage anywhere in Australia

Lonely Planet believes good travel writing travels beyond facts and maps - there are stories and inspirations to be shared. This title includes stories from popular Lonely Planet anthologies such as 'On The Edge', 'By The Seat Of My Pants', 'The Kindness of Strangers', 'Tales From Nowhere', and others.